


If Not Devotion

by Lady Belarvs (fightthosefairies)



Category: Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
Genre: Bathtub Sex, Deception, M/M, Manipulation, Socially Awkward Character, Tom is such a creeper, awkward!Tom Ripley, dubcon touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 16:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21497257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthosefairies/pseuds/Lady%20Belarvs
Summary: During the bathtub chess scene - what if Dickie had said *yes*?
Relationships: Dickie Greenleaf/Marge Sherwood, Dickie Greenleaf/Tom Ripley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 140





	If Not Devotion

Prologue:

The name on his birth certificate and his passport stated he was Herbert Richard Greenleaf, Jr. -- son to Herbert Sr. and Emily.

Born June 20, 1932, 26 years of age. 6'1", 16lbs. Eyes: hazel. Hair: brown.

To his parents, his parents' gauche friends and professors at Princeton, he was known as Richard or Herbert Jr. (although he'd never cared much for that name), but to all of **his** friends, he was known simply as Dickie.

Dickie had fathomless passions for sailing ships and jazz. When combined, his two greatest loves manifested themselves in the structure of one luxurious 60ft sailboat. He'd christened it "Bird," after trumpet-player Charlie Parker, the undisputed maestro of jazz in his eyes. It was his love of jazz that inspired Dickie to endeavor to learn how to play the saxophone and, with time, had in fact become quite masterful with the instrument.

Dickie loved sailing, yet would have nothing to do with his father or the family business of building ships. Herbert Jr. was the reluctant heir to the Greenleaf shipbuilding empire in Boston, but he ran away to Italy soon after graduating from Princeton and vanished without a trace.

It was Herbert Sr. that initially approached Tom Ripley and propositioned him to go to Italy, find their wayward son, and entreat him to return home to Boston. An attendant at the Boston Lyric Opera's men's room, Tom had stepped in to play piano at an anniversary party in place of a friend who'd sprained his wrist. As fate would have it, the wedding anniversary being celebrated was that of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Greenleaf.

Tom's friend had loaned him a jacket for the party, which bore the Princeton insignia embroidered on the breast pocket. Consequently, the Greenleafs mistook Tom for a classmate of Dickie's from Princeton and it was that single instance of mistaken identity that threw the doors wide open for Tom Ripley. It was sheer coincidence that would eventually allow him to roam freely the playground of the privileged and the affluent, give him carte blanche to live the fondest daydreams that he had been denied by circumstance.

The lad had to choose between New York and his dreary, one room sub-level apartment or Italy. The thousand dollar incentive the Greenleafs were offering him or the meager spare pocket change he made as a gentleman's attendant. Tom had always longed to travel to Europe, and in soliciting that he recover his son, Mr. Greenleaf was giving him the perfect excuse to go. 

So Tom chose Italy.

Tom flew to Mongibello, a tiny, idyllic town on the west coast of Italy and went in search of the errant young heir. Just a stone's throw from Mt. Vesuvius and the neon-lit nightlife of Naples, Mongibello was the last place that Dickie had been spotted, so Tom began there.

He recognized Dickie almost immediately from the photograph in the Princeton annual that Mr. Greenleaf had loaned him. It was one thing to examine a plain black and white photograph and scrutinize the intricate creases and valleys of a person's face as the camera saw it, but it was another thing entirely to see that person first hand, in living color, as it were. In that, the photograph could never accurately capture or even begin to make sense of the sheer physical perfection that Dickie Greenleaf embodied. Sandy brown hair touched with gold from all the days spent lounging in the sun at the beach or on the boat. Broad, brown shoulders, narrow waist and hips, carefully muscled arms and a firm, flat stomach.

That's where Tom first laid eyes on Dickie Greenleaf: on his boat, Bird, with his fiancée, Marge Sherwood. They were a lovely couple -- one could go as far as to say the perfect couple. Two young, healthy, beautiful people living out an existence any man would envy tucked away in a comely, easygoing little seaside town far away from all the cares and worries of the modern world. A serene refuge when compared to the bustling, tightly-wound metropolis of Boston.

Tom never imagined that this striking couple would ever even notice a drab, awkward person such as himself, but not only did they take notice of him, they pulled him into their fold almost immediately. Marge and Dickie didn't know him from Adam and yet that didn't seem to concern them in the slightest -- what concerned Dickie most was the fact that he had a brand new playmate. A fellow American wandering along picturesque shores not to be seen anywhere else in the world -- pure happenstance, a glorious coincidence -- at least, that's what Tom let them believe, in the beginning.

To Dickie, Tom was a rare, but coarse stone to be smoothed, polished and refined. Tom couldn't ski, he couldn't mix martinis and he couldn't find his way around their tiny village if he had the assistance of both a map and a compass -- but he made Dickie laugh, shared Dickie's endless love of jazz and, most importantly, Tom had Dickie's father's money burning holes in the pockets of his ugly green corduroy sports coat.

So it was here that Tom Ripley found himself: in the palatial seaside villa that Dickie and Marge had procured for themselves in Mongi, the length of his stay as of yet indeterminate. As stalwart and dependable as he had been all of his life, Tom soon forgot the promise he had made to Dickie's parents. In fact, the very notion of uprooting the amiable young Greenleaf from his new hideaway only to drag him back to the stifling shackles of the suit-and-tie existence waiting for him in Boston was absurd, to say the least.

For the first time in a long time -- perhaps even the first time in his life -- Tom was truly, genuinely happy... and it was all thanks to Dickie.

* * *

"King to e8," Tom said as he replaced the black rook with his white king. He rested his chin in his palm and waited for his opponent to make his next move. The slender and beguiling blond man seated in the tub across from Tom took a drag off of his hand-rolled cigarette and leaned over the board, studying it intently.

"I don't feel like playing anymore," Dickie said at last, reclining against the back of the tub.

"But you're winning!" A forced, humorless chuckle belied Tom's exasperation. Despite the fact that Dickie was handsome and had charm and charisma to spare, his painfully short attention span could be, at times, quite wearing on one's nerves. "You can beat me in three moves!"

"So? What's winning got to do with it? It's just a game, Tom -- it's not like we're playing some world tournament. Winning isn't everything. Lemme show you." He grasped the sides of the tray on which the chessboard sat and turned it around so that his black pieces were now facing Tom. "See? Now _ you're _ winning," he grinned mischievously as he let his blond head loll back on the lip of the tub. As far as Dickie was concerned, the game was officially over. "Put the board away, would you?"

"Oh! Sure thing," Ripley stood, carefully lifting the board up off of the bath tray perched across the tub. He carried it over to the bathroom counter and replaced the pieces in the base of the weighty, hardwood chessboard, which concealed a felt-lined compartment that housed all of the hand-carved pieces. "Are we going out tonight, do you think?"

"Maybe." Dickie idly swished a washcloth through the steaming bath water, which had been turned a sickly aqua blue by the bath salts he'd poured in as the tub was filling. He picked up the half-empty glass of red wine sitting on the rim of the tub, drained it in one gulp, and set the glass aside. "Say, Tom, be a pal and wash my back for me? I can never reach."

"Okay," he quickly finished putting the chess pieces away and moved to stoop at the edge of the bathtub. Dickie handed him a sponge as he leaned forward, displaying the broad expanse of his sun-bronzed back and shoulders.

"Marge tells everybody I'm completely helpless." He chuckled as he took a final drag off of his cigarette and dropped it into the wine glass sitting on the rim of the tub. "'I swear, Dickie, you can't even wash your own back! Did you have nannies that wiped your ass for you, too?'"

Dickie's imitation of his fiancée was practically flawless, if you disregarded the fact that Marge, quintessential lady that she was, had never uttered a profane word in her life. Despite his lightly aloof, amused tone, Tom knew that, on some level, Marge's words had truly wounded Dickie. The handsome man's emotions were, as his vanity, instantly perceptible to any eye that happened to look upon him.

Tom watched the discarded cigarette butt smolder in the wine glass as he rubbed a bar of sweet-smelling herbal soap into the lumpy sponge. The glowing orange light at the core of the cigarette began to ebb out as the last vestiges of rolling paper burned to ash. The deeply curved bowl of the glass was glazed with a yellowish brown residue as the butt gradually smoked itself out. A final tiny coil of smoke guttered up out of the glass and the cigarette was out. Now Tom had nothing else to concentrate on except for Dickie's back... and his shoulders, his narrow waist... and all the other well-tanned regions that the revolting blue bath water hid from his attentive, predacious gaze.  
  


"I don't think you're helpless." Tom gently scrubbed the sponge over Dickie's back in slow circles, starting at his shoulders, gradually working his way down. Dickie drew his knees up to his chest and folded his arms together on top of his knees.

"That's what I like about you, Tom," he said with a snort, "you think I'm perfect. It does wonders for my ego. Y'know I love her -- and if you ever tell her I said this, I'll break your neck -- but Marge is just like my father: she doesn't think I can do anything right."

"Well, you must be doing something right. Otherwise, I'd be the one sitting in the tub and you'd be washing **my** back." A soft, nervous chuckle. "Face it, Dickie, you lead a charmed life. Beautiful fiancée, money to burn, living in the midst of all this Italian splendor. I wouldn't mind living your life."

"Yeah? You want to try it some time, you go right ahead," Dickie grumbled. "My father's disappointed in me and thinks I'm an irresponsible lay about. He's always hated me, but suddenly, now he wants me to come work for him at the shipyard. So I can help make that bloated checkbook of his a little fatter. You think I've got a perfect life? Well, dream on. You want a life like mine -- hell, you want _ my _ life -- you're more than welcome to it, my friend, but I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy's dog."

"I didn't -- I just meant," the younger man began hesitantly, inwardly cursing himself for having upset Dickie. "What I mean to say was that the life you have here in Mongi is perfect. Looks pretty darn perfect to me, anyway."

"Yeah, I love it here," Dickie mused with a broad, beatific smile as he raked a hand through his tousled blond curls. "Italy is so _ alive_: jazz and gorgeous women, delicious food and all the wine you can drink. This is my idea of Heaven. I'd take Mongi over Boston any day!" His shoulders tensed even as an unbecoming grimace of distaste twisted his lips. "Boston was draining me dry. My father wants me to go back to Boston so _ he _ can drain me dry. He wants me to stop living and breathing and be a _ good boy _ : join the work force, "do something ** _meaningful_ **" with my life. He wants me to become a dried up old stump just like him. I'd rather die than go back to that."

"Have you... ever wished you could live someone else's life?" Tom rubbed the soapy sponge up and down the length of Dickie's spine as he spoke. "Even for a day? Just to see what it would be like to be someone else?"

"No," the blond shrugged.

"Well, I sure have. Wished I could live someone else's life, I mean."

"Whose would you want to live for a day?"

"Whose life?"

"Yeah."

"I'd... I guess I'd choose yours." The sponge slipped out of his hand and fell into the bathtub. For just an instant, Tom's hand stroked Dickie's smooth skin, made slippery by the soap. He jerked his hand away at once as if he'd been burned, while the other man seemed to take no notice of his silent turmoil.

"Do you have any brothers?" Dickie asked offhandedly.

"No. No brothers, no sisters." He fished the sponge out of the bath and resumed his careful scrubbing.

"Me neither. Nor does Marge. We're all only children -- what does that mean?"

"We never had to share a bath." Tom gulped and tried to muster up his courage. "I'm cold. Can I get in?"

"How are you at giving back rubs?" Dickie glanced over his shoulder at Tom and arched an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I give really good massages, actually."

"Swell! Yet another talent. Well, then... you can get in if you agree to give me a back rub."

Ripley quickly pulled himself up off of the floor, his pulse hammering in his ears. Dickie slid forward in the tub, making just enough room for another person to sit behind him and sat up straight in the tub, placing his hands on the lip of the tub on either side of him. Tom reached up to unbutton his shirt, but hesitated.

"Well? Are you getting in or not?" Dickie glanced at Tom over his shoulder, brows furrowed.

"Yeah," he nodded woodenly.

"Might wanna get out of those clothes, then," he smirked. "I won't look. Promise." Dickie made a dramatic show of averting his eyes.

"'Promise with a capital P'?" he joked half-heartedly as he slipped out of his shirt and draped it on the towel rack by the tub.

"Yeah," Dickie chuckled, head still turned. "Capital P."

Tom unbuckled his belt, unzipped his trousers and shucked them and his boxers off in one swift motion, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he did so. He put his trousers and belt on the towel rack along with his shirt. Now completely naked and humiliated at his half-erect state, Tom grappled for all the courage he could as he stepped into the tub and sank into the lukewarm bathwater behind Dickie.

He grasped both of the other man's shoulders and began to knead them gently. "God, you're so tense."

"Tell me about it," Dickie groaned. "I get these headaches, sometimes, y'know? The doctor told me himself that they were tension headaches. I told my father and guess what he said?" He glanced over his shoulder at Tom.

"What did he say?"

"'What do you have to be tense about, Richard?'" Dickie's imitation of his father wasn't as uncanny as Tom's, but the clipped, brusque tone of voice in which he spoke was what made the casual mimicry ring true. "If he doesn't think I have anything to be tense about, I must not be tense. Must all be in my head or something. At least, that's how he sees it."

Tom's slippery fingers carefully worked their way down Dickie's spine, massaging in slow, deep circles. The other man let out a low moan of approval, arching his back against Tom's hands like a love-starved feline, his head lolling back limply on his shoulders. Tom took a deep breath as his hands worked down to the base of Dickie's spine, sinking into the warm, fragrant water.

"You are really tense, though. I can feel it," Tom offered softly as his fingers slid around to massage the tender muscles along Dickie's flanks and hips. "In here, especially." He fished the sodden sponge out of the water and rinsed off Dickie's back, then returned to his work. "Easier if you're not covered with soap," he explained with a weak chuckle.

"Mmm... that feels nice," the other man said as he rolled his head around on his shoulders in an effort to work the kinks out of his neck.

"Oh, is your neck sore? Here, let me," Tom reached up and carefully massaged the nape of Dickie's neck, thumbs moving together in clockwise and counter-clockwise circles, pressing lightly and moving outward from the center of his neck.

"Where'd you learn how to do this?" Dickie inquired absently.

"I had a job at a men's health club, once. Someone there taught me how to do it." There was almost a hint of pride in Ripley's voice, then. He was thankful that something he had learned during his brief employ at the club was now useful to him, to Dickie.

"Health club. I thought you said you played piano at jazz clubs in Boston?" It was a perfectly innocuous question; nevertheless it made anxiety skitter over Tom's skin like spiders.

"I said I had a lot of jobs," Tom replied, forcing laughter into his tone, "but I didn't say they were all playing piano at jazz clubs." If Dickie had taken any notice of Tom's edginess, he didn't let it show; he was lost in the companionable silence and sensation of Tom's hands slowly, methodically easing the stress from his weary muscles.

"Well... you certainly are some kind of a mystery, Tom Ripley." By now, Tom had begun gently kneading his shoulders and back again, working his way down Dickie's spine.

His hands slipped around Dickie's waist, massaging every inch of muscle and skin within his reach. The feel of Dickie's clean, soap-slicked skin under his fingertips and the warm, spiced scent of his body were heady sensations for Tom, ones that he'd never dared to imagine.

Gradually, their conversation lulled to nothingness, punctuated only by the soft sounds of wordless appreciation and pleasure from Dickie. Tom found a bright modicum of satisfaction in his ministrations and found that he much preferred the other man this way -- silent, serene, beautiful... pliable.

His hands continued to wander over the slender form, sneaking around Dickie's waist with the pretense of massaging along his flanks. He was ever attentive -- eyes and ears open, hands trembling like a pair of fragile, anxious birds prepared to take to the sky at the slightest sign of danger. Eyes fixed on the back of Dickie's head, Tom slowly moved his left hand downward, slipping into the water and between Dickie's legs to grasp the soft column of quiescent flesh he found there.

"Tom, what the hell are you --?" The other man began, a sharp, disapproving edge to his voice and made a move to glance over his shoulder at him.

"No, please, don't --" Tom placed his free hand on Dickie's shoulder to calm him and settle him back down in his place. "Please, let me do this for you. Please?" He unfolded his legs and placed them on either side of the man seated in front of him, sliding his body forward till he was pressed tightly against his back. He feathered light kisses one on top of the other on Dickie's shoulder blade. "Please? You ... you don't have to say anything... just... just let me touch you."

He buried his face in the crook of Dickie's shoulder and sighed, letting the warm, musky scent of his companion surround and fill him. Ripley realized just how silly and melodramatic he must have sounded, but he _ needed _ this. Never before in his life had Tom Ripley been capable of expressing his deepest desires, to anyone. But there was something about Dickie Greenleaf that demanded his honesty, made him want to be completely truthful -- to himself and to others -- about what he wanted.

"All right..." Dickie's tone sounded vaguely and unconvincingly grudging, "but just this once." Tom's heart leapt and he smiled brightly in spite of himself. "And you don't say a word to Marge about this -- not a single word."

"I promise, I promise," he assented gravely, lips gliding over the soft tanned skin of the other man's throat. He wrapped his right arm around Dickie's chest, gently urging him to lean back. "Relax... relax into me."

The tense line of Dickie's shoulders softened as his shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Tom's arm remained draped across the other man's chest as he eased the two of them back to rest against the back of the tub. As they settled against one another, Dickie loosed a deep, shaky sigh, his hands coming up to grip either side of the tub. "Don't be nervous. Just let me..."

Tom's left hand tightened around the half-hard shaft in his palm and began stroking in a slow, undemanding rhythm, gradually bringing him to full, exquisite hardness. Pressed full-length against each other as they were, the shiver that danced through Dickie's body at his touch was impossible to ignore. Tom bent his head and captured Dickie's earlobe, teasing the tender flesh with his teeth, nibbling along the outside of the soft shell. Another shiver and Dickie arched up into his touch, hands tightening on the sides of the tub until his knuckles were as white as the porcelain they clung to. 

Dickie undulated his hips sinuously, rocking up into his touch with an eagerness that was almost wanton; Tom had to bite his lip to keep a moan from escaping as Dickie's wet skin slid against his own erection. He dappled the other man's throat with kisses, running his tongue from the base of his throat up to the sensitive skin just behind his ear. Dickie leaned into the touch -- turned his entire body in the direction of it -- his eyes tightly closed, craving more in spite of himself.

Tom let his right hand wander over Dickie's body, silently worshipping the musculature of his abdomen, tracing the curve of each rib, the brown pebbled nipples and moist golden skin now faintly flushed thanks to Tom's attentions.

He dared to reach up, cup Dickie's chin in his palm and turned his head ever so gently; dared to brush his own lips against Dickie's. They were red like wine; plump and robust like the grapes from which wine is made. And they were moist and sweet like those same grapes, glistening delicately with a wet sheen once they were plucked from the vine.

Dickie's breath caught in his throat as his hazel eyes opened and fixed upon Tom's blue-gray ones. Tom continued to pump the hardened flesh in his palm and increased the cadence of his strokes, smoothing his thumb over the swollen, weeping crown. Dickie's eyelids drifted to half-mast and another low moan escaped his parted lips as his right hand crept up to cup the back of Tom's neck, wordlessly pleading, inviting. Tom couldn't suppress the soft, triumphant groan as he pressed his lips to Dickie's again. The abandon of the moment swept the two of them away -- and when Tom's tongue brushed against his lips, meekly seeking a deeper taste, he didn't resist. Eyes pinched tightly shut, Dickie pulled Tom forward and plundered his mouth with a ferocious hunger that Tom had never before glimpsed in the other man.

Meanwhile, Dickie continued to thrust into the tight, warm channel of the fingers that engulfed him, the motion of his hips by no means as steady or smooth as it had been at the onset. Dickie loosed a gasp into his tormentor's mouth as Tom drew his lower lip into his mouth and nipped it, traced the tender skin with the tip of his tongue. Tom could feel his body beginning to shudder -- an over-wound spring steeling itself to break -- but held back, pumping the erection in his fist with increased urgency.

With a barely stifled shout, Dickie's release ground through him and he gripped the hair at the nape of Tom's neck in an almost painful grip until his trembling eased. Dickie lay back, his head lolling lazily on Tom's shoulder, his sated, closed eyes directed at the rafters. Tom released the spent flesh and let his hand slide through the water and over Dickie's abdomen, gently cleaning away any traces of the deed.

He reached out to tip Dickie's face in his direction once more, so he could press a kiss to those sweet, bruised lips, but Dickie wrenched himself out of Tom's arms before he had the opportunity. Dickie slid forward in the tub, chin up, his shoulders back and tensed.

"Get out."

"Wh... what --" Tom stammered weakly.

"Get out of the tub. Get out of here and leave me alone." The tone was sharp, impatient and impassive.

"But, Dickie, I thought -- what did I --?"

"**Now!**" The barely reined fury of Dickie's bellowed reply was enough to send Tom shooting up out of the tub. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist -- which served to conceal both his disappointment as well as his unsatisfied arousal -- tucking the end in as he fumbled for his clothes.

Padding carefully on the slick tile, Tom spared one glance back -- Dickie had reclined against the back of the tub once again, his eyes closed, all signs of his former ire now absent. Tom would have sighed, then... but stopped himself. Jaw firmly, determinedly squared, he marched back to his room. Whatever he had done to make Dickie angry, he would do everything in his power to make things right again. He had to; that's all there was to it.

As he dressed, Tom Ripley carefully, quietly and methodically considered various methods of seduction.

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately, I have no idea of the date for when I first posted this story, but it's definitely an older one! I'm collecting my favorite older works (and my favorite rare pairings!) so that they're all in one place. This is one of those. More coming soon!


End file.
